From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
“Reaching Out”
A Play in One Act
[Scene: the stoop of a large colonial-style home]
[Billy rings doorbell]
[Door opens. Wayne LaPierre appears in bathrobe, surrounded by armed bodyguards in bathrobes]
Billy: Mr. Wayne LaPierre? Hi. I was told by David Brooks of The New York Times that I’m supposed to reach out to you so we can work together, with you and red-state gun owners taking the lead, to reduce the number of school shootings that are happening in this coun…..
LaPierre [interrupting]*: You far-left liberals are angry, you’re militant and you’re willing to engage in criminal violence to get what you want!!! You people literally hate everything America stands for! You spit in the face of Gold Star families! You throw beer bottles and rocks at police and smash business plate glass windows while customers cower inside!”
Billy: But I…
LaPierre*: You members of the leftist media and soldiers for the violent left, you violent criminals and drug-carteled gang members or would-be terrorists, hear this: you’re not going to win and you will not defeat us!
[LaPierre slams door in Billy’s face]
Billy: Oh. I see. Sorry to bother you. I’ll just leave this reaching-out-for-common-ground bundt cake on your stoop, then? David Brooks says it’s your favorite.
[Door opens, LaPierre grabs cake]
LaPierre*: We will not be intimidated!!!
[Door slams in Billy’s face]
Billy: A great start. Thanks for the advice, Bobo.
[Curtain down]
[Playwright instantly nominated for Tony Award]
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*Actual quotes
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Note: Everything in today's C&J has been plagiarized. ---Call me Ishmael.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the midterm elections: 258
Days 'til the Naperville Winter Ale Fest in Illinois: 3
Public approval of Trump in the weekly Gallup poll, down from 40%: 37%
Weeks since Trump’s Gallup approval was above 40%: 38
Rank of Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, respectively, in the latest survey by the American Political Science Association: #10, #8
Percent chance that the Russia investigation is “moving really freaking fast,” according to FiveThirtyEight: 100%
Year the Tesla and its driver “Starman” will have their next close encounter with Earth: 2091
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 186 (including 3 Occults and 1 Fox News host with a vivid imagination). Soul Protection Factor 24 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Not so much a wiener dog (yet)...more like a Cocktail weenie dog…
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CHEERS to another dick in the dock. Boom! The Russia investigation bags another bumbling bum. This time it appears to be one of Russia’s Jared Kushners: Alex Van der Zwaan, the son-in-law of Russian oligarch and Putin confidante German Khan. He was charged yesterday with lying to the FBI about communications with Rick Gates and "Person A" (Paul Manafort?):
In a statement, Skadden said: "The firm terminated its employment of Alex van der Zwaan in 2017 and has been cooperating with authorities in connection with this matter."
The case against van der Zwaan shows that Mueller is proceeding methodically and increasing pressure on key witnesses, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said in a statement.
The case “sends a signal to both Paul Manafort and Rick Gates: cooperate or risk greater trouble in the future.”
For those of you keeping score, this is Russiagate indictment #21. Based on the number of shoes that have dropped thus far, I think it’s safe to assume one thing: Robert Mueller is actually a centipede.
JEERS to a little gun-violence-induced vacation from all the unpleasantness. After the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, the White House felt relieved that it was getting a reprieve from all the coverage of its multiple scandals. Then a staffer said that out loud, and now the White House is getting a reprieve from its attempt to focus attention on the Stoneman Douglas shooting, thanks to all the coverage of a White House staffer calling the Stoneman Douglas shooting a “reprieve.” Jay Willis at GQ writes:
The fact that children murdered in their classrooms constitutes, as an unnamed official put it to the Post, a "reprieve" from the consequences their own incompetence is as cynical as politics gets.
Never one to let slip an opportunity to tweet more about collusion, the president even insinuated that the FBI's devastating admission that it had failed follow up on tips about the Parkland shooter is related to its ongoing investigation into his campaign's alleged participation in Russian election interference. This administration's only moments of semi-stability occur when some unexpected tragedy reminds their constituents that malevolence and cruelty exist outside the four walls of the White House, too.
Legislators have failed these children in the worst imaginable way, and their president has proven capable of viewing this failure only through the lens of what's best for his approval rating. The next generation can't tear this country from their hands soon enough.
Just make sure you wear thick gloves when you do it. They bite.
CHEERS to letting your fingers do the walking. 140 years ago today, the first telephone book was issued by the District Telephone Co. of New Haven, Connecticut, consisting of 50 names and a hundred pizza coupons. Today so many people use the internet to find numbers that there are efforts floating around to make delivery of the phone book an "opt-in" thing. Still, it does have its uses. For one thing it gives the height-challenged something to sit on besides a plastic booster seat that screams, "Ignore me, I'm a child." For another thing, five years ago a survey showed the phone book may be just what we need to save our republic:
Members of Congress may not always be popular, but now Americans say nearly anyone could take their place. A full 43% of voters nationwide think a group of people randomly selected from a telephone book would do a better job than current legislators, a new Rasmussen Reports poll found.
Here, let me try. I'll close my eyes, pick up a random phone book, put my finger on a random page, and---[Thrmp!!!]---Nugent, Ted. Oh dear god, abolish the damn things already.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. The website Money Ning asks: What can’t you live without?
Airholes.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
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CHEERS to today’s edition of Supreme Court Psych!!! Via The Portland Press Herald:
Maine Gov.Paul LePage is calling out a member of the state’s [Supreme Court], accusing Associate Justice Joseph M. Jabar of reneging on an agreement to retire after he reached 20 years of service so LePage could nominate a more conservative judge.
This has been today’s edition of Supreme Court Psych!!!
CHEERS to monumental achievements. On February 21, 1885, the Washington Monument was dedicated. Not many people know this, but forensic pathologists now believe it's shaped exactly like George's tallywacker. Now you know why Martha never smiled.
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Ten years ago in C&J: February 21, 2008
CHEERS to big honkers. Yesterday we were in downtown Portland, and standing at the busy corner of Exchange and Middle Streets were a couple guys with placards that read: HONK IF YOU WANT TO IMPEACH BUSH. This was what we heard as we walked by:
Honk! Honk! Beep! Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk! Beep! Honk!Honk! Ching ching! Beep! Honk! Ahooooga! Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk! Beep!Honk! Beep! Honk! HonkHonkHonk!!!
It gets better. As people walked by the two guys holding the signs, they muttered: "Honk." [sigh] An entire city can dream, can't it?
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And just one more…
CHEERS to cool science. The UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has announced the winners of its fifth annual photo contest, and the grand prize winner is---to use the proper British term---wee. What you see below is David Nadlinger’s Polaroid of “a Strontium atom after being excited by a laser.” That’s right: this photo may not be safe for work---it’s laser porn:
When illuminated by a laser of the right blue-violet colour the atom absorbs and re-emits light particles sufficiently quickly for an ordinary camera to capture it in a long exposure photograph. The winning picture was taken through a window of the ultra-high vacuum chamber that houses the ion trap.
To put the size of an atom in perspective: it’s 100-trillion times smaller than a human cell, and it’s sixteen times as big as a Trump brain cell. Twenty if you’re talking about Eric.
Have a happy humpday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
“Way too fucking long.”
---Ridley Scott
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